


the things we didn't get to say

by njckle



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Deathfic, F/M, Happy Valentine’s Day, Love Confessions, newtina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 07:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13608657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/njckle/pseuds/njckle
Summary: She'll stay with him until the very end, until the fire takes them.





	the things we didn't get to say

**Author's Note:**

  * For [returntosaturn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/returntosaturn/gifts), [Annjushka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annjushka/gifts).



> Thank you to Annjushka for bringing up the angst prompts in the first place and spurring me to write this! And a big thank you to Saturn for dealing with the nonsense that's my writing process (I finished this earlier because of you, so thank you, babe).
> 
> Props to the Angst Queen, hystericalcherries, for helping me put the finishing touches on this fic.
> 
> To everybody else, think of this as an early Valentine's fic. >:)

There’s ash in Tina’s mouth and blood on her hands.

She breathes and it’s a painful affair, a horrible feeling that burns in her chest, flaring out at her sides. One of her ribs must be broken. Even so, she forces her body to move, to crawl across the stone and wood and glass.

The wreckage moans like a dying man, ready to fall and crush her, but stubbornly holds fast. Tina forces herself through the opening of what she thinks used to be the doorway, shoving aside splintered planks of wood, ripped tarbs of exotic places, and distorted instruments. She ignores the mangled bodies, past the fizzling remains of her wand and an empty case that’s burnt and torn, until she’s beside the one thing she so desperately needs.

“Newt.”

It happened in a rush of action and destruction that came shockingly quick, catching her unaware. They were supposed to be safe, hidden away in a haven that no one could find. But good things, Tina finds, have no place in war.

And what a war is has been. A hurricane of gunfire and spells and disease, merciless in how it collects the lives of men for sport, tallying up a score that’ll never be beat. She knows first hand what it’s like, being on the losing side of war. Useless and broken, helpless to fight against those who wished her harm. Incapacitated and unable to protect the one man she would die for.

(“I have to be sure,” Grindelwald had said after he’d destroyed everything, a nightmare come to life in disguise as a man. A beast in everything but name, claws and bloodlust hidden underneath pressed suits and coattails. “The wand needs to obey only me.”

“Please…” Begging, Tina remembers begging, desperate and willing to do anything. “Don’t do this.”

“I have to, you see. Sacrifices have to be made.” A tilt of the head, a sadistic gesture. Malevolence wearing pinstripes. “Surely you must understand that.”

None of his words could make her understand. She’d seen the knife, known what was about to happen next, and could do _nothing._

“Oh, don’t fret. I remember how it is being in love.” A gloved hand gripped her chin and forced her to face him, dark eyes never leaving her face as he continued to press the heel of his shoes into Newt’s throat. He’d blinked in the growing firelight, waking from a far off memory. “I am a man of mercy, after all.”

And then he’d brought his knife down on Tina’s entire world.)

Ignoring her own pain, Tina clutches at the broken man in her lap. Her hands flit from one wound to the next, unsure where one begins and the other ends, sticky and shaking when she finally turns him to face her.

“Tina,” Newt says, his voice a mere whisper, run ragged like his body. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean for any of this to—to happen. I didn’t know...it’s all my fault— and now you—” The thought of her end must terrify him because his eyes grow wide, shining in the fiery light like a burning star. He makes a feeble grab at her wrist, staining her skin with his mistake. “You have to go—you can’t stay here—”

Tina shushes him, gently prying his fingers away. “I made my choice, Newt.”

“But—”

“I made my choice,” she repeats, the closest thing to a vow she’ll get, “to stay with you.”

Tina hears the roar of a monster from somewhere deep in the tunnels, only she knows it’s far different from the beasts she’s come to know and love, a fervid thing that won’t stop until it finds them. It should scare her, death creeping ever closer—it _does_ scare her, completely and witlessly—but Newt’s weight in her arms keeps her in the moment, keeps her sane. She won’t leave him.

Newt stares up at her with such an intensity that’s beyond words. “I wish…” He swallows and she can see his throat working to get out the last of his words. “I wish I wasn’t such a coward and had asked you to dinner.”

Tina wishes too. She wishes on things that she’d hope to make real, to make hers, for days that weren’t spent surviving a war and escaping killers, for a happier life.

Newt isn’t the only coward. Tina’s spent most of her life bending under her own fear—fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of living. It’s exhausting work, being unhappy, and she had found herself easily persuaded by this extraordinary man to pause just long enough to see what could have been. It’s not hard to see why she’d fallen—tripped by her own foolish heart, beating wildly as she braced for impact—and, every moment after, she’d found another reason to stay; touches that lingered when no one was looking, simple words that stole her breath, and smiles that twinkled when returned. How many opportunities had she passed by? How many had she let slip through her fingers? And now, after so many chances past and words left unsaid, with their time together coming to a daunting close, she thinks they’re both about to miss one more.

Newt shakes uncontrollably. “Your answer—” A shuddering breath. “—if I had asked?”

She bends down and cups his face. His skin is slick with sweat and blood, but she doesn’t mind, stroking his cheek with all the tenderness she wishes she’d given him sooner. “I would have said yes.”

He smiles then, his laugh weak, but happy. There’s blood on his lips. “Really?”

Tina nods, her own laugh coming out wet. “Really.”

Something, most likely a part of the infrastructure, crumbles, and the tunnel groans a warning. Tina covers Newt as debris falls, draped across his body, close enough that she can hear the rattling of his breath, like each intake is a struggle. It’s an ugly sound.

He must know their time together is running out because he latches onto the fantasy with a desperation unlike Tina’s ever seen. “I had it all planned out…dinner at eight…then—dancing…”

“A nice walk through the park.”

“Yes,” he gasps out. “I would walk you…to your…door…”

“A regular gentleman.” She swallows the sudden emotion in her throat, struggling to stay in a right mind, but speaks her heart. “I would’ve let you kiss me,” she whispers the secret, quiet and soft. The words are a great relief on her soul, sounding so incredibly _right_ that she regrets never saying them before. That they’re only just beginning when they’re so close to the end. “I would’ve given you anything if you’d asked.”

Newt gazes up at her with an expression that’s close to awe, painting him in colors of vulnerable boyish grace, and Tina doesn’t think he’s ever looked more handsome. There are tears in his eyes and his voice breaks with emotion when he asks, “…and…now?”

A dam breaks and swelled emotion rushes past her crumbling guard as she sobs, open-mouthed and aching. He’s fading right before her very eyes and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. There’s a pang in her chest, the frustration and sadness growing and growing until she thinks she’ll be swallowed whole, drowned in her own sea of misery. Her eyes burn as she cradles his face, tilting it to keep his gaze so all he can see is her and only her. “Anything.”

“I would have liked that,” Newt sighs, the last of his breath warm against her lips. “Very much…”

And then he’s gone. Like a shooting star on its last stretch, he fades and Tina’s left alone, staring into glassy eyes that won’t see again. The world around her eclipses into a dark shadow of itself and she withers along wit it. She feels as if the sun has been ripped right out of her sky, the loss clutching at her heart and squeezing tight until she can’t breath.

Heartbreak clouds her mind, making every breath a painful chore that she’s not sure she wants to continue to do. But she doesn’t look away, not even when the fire gets closer, smoke unfurling into the atmosphere in a menagerie of destruction. The magical fire stampedes through the rubble, its scream a mirror to the whirlwind of feelings scraping against the cage of her ribs.

Ever so gently, she raises a hand to stroke the cheek of the man she loved. She feels the heat, sees the flames as they rush over stone, clawing at the remainder of the walls and swallowing everything in its path. It roars and hisses and shrieks, a beast that can’t be tamed. It crashes against the remaining tokens of her world with a undeniable hunger, never satisfied of the lives it has taken.

Tina closes her eyes and lets it take her too.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are appreciated!


End file.
